Voodoo Daddy (A Virgil Jones Mystery) Read Online Free

wasn’t talking to me though. I could just barely hear her. It sounded like she was panting, breathing hard, and swearing all at the same time. She kept counting, one through five, over and over.
    As a new team member, I had assigned Sandy to the Governor’s protection detail for the past week. My thinking was, it was a way to get to know the Governor on a more personal level. A better understanding of who you’re working for and all that. Today was Sandy’s last day with the Governor before she started catching cases.
    I got that pit of your stomach feeling that something was really, really wrong. I dropped my truck into gear, hit the lights and burped the siren through the intersection. It was just past seven in the morning. She’d still be at the Governor’s mansion. I put the phone on speaker so I could have both hands on the wheel. “Sandy? Sandy, can you hear me?” I shouted into the phone but Sandy didn’t, or couldn’t answer me. I heard her grunt with effort, heard her swear again. I couldn’t quite make it out, but it sounded like she was swearing. Saying ‘shit’, over and over.
    A few seconds later as I screeched through a corner and turned north on Meridian Avenue I heard her loud and clear. Her voice was coming through on the Motorola police radio under the dash of my truck. “Officer down. Shots fired. Officer needs assistance. Governor’s Mansion. Repeat…….Officer…….Down. Officer……needs……” Then that was all.
    I dropped the hammer on the truck and blew the intersection. Didn’t think about, just went and went hard. I figured I was eight minutes out if I didn’t kill myself on the way there.
     
    * * *
     
    Sandy Small had a Bachelor’s degree in education, a Master’s degree in psychology, and was ranked as an expert in marksmanship on the shooting range. Translation: She could out think and out shoot just about every cop in the state and could also teach anyone how to do it if they wanted to put their bullshit on the back burner. Most didn’t, but that wasn’t on her.
    She was on the last day of her protection rotation, covering the overnights at the Governor’s mansion. Her new boss, Virgil, had told her that they’d all had to do it, part of some getting to know the big guy routine, or something. As far as Sandy was concerned, protection was protection, simple as that. Getting to know someone in the process was neither a pro or a con. It was more of an inconvenience than anything. But no matter….this was the last day and she was almost done.
    At seven in the morning Sandy stepped outside from the back door of the Governor’s mansion, walked across the deck, down the steps and headed out. Monday morning, last time of the last day to walk the wall. The Governor’s mansion was situated on a full acre of property at the northern edge of the city of Indianapolis. An entire acre, Sandy had discovered, covered 43,650 square feet, and in this case, said acre was surrounded by a nine foot high brick wall on all four sides. At about three feet per walking step around the perimeter, it was safe to say that doing one circuit per hour every eight hours over the last week had been a lot of walking. Good for the thighs.
    Not to mention the ass.
    She varied her routine—sometimes clockwise, sometimes counter-clockwise. She always paused at the gate at the front of the drive though, stepped out and waved to whomever had the uniformed duty street-side and then continued on back to the house. This last trip was no different. Barney Burns, that old coot, whistled at her every time she went by.
    Sandy was about fifteen steps from the front entrance—in the middle of pulling her long blond hair into a pony tail—when she heard the sounds, three in all. Or was it four?. First a loud pop, like a car backfiring. She stopped and listened. Heard another noise, then a short pause, before two more. The sound was distinct, especially if you knew what you were listening for—a ratcheting